America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 1, Episode 23 - Debriefing - Full Episode | Forensic Files

this is an adc warning the crimes you're about to see are true only the names were changed to protect
the ignorant [Music] tonight you'll see a dumb criminal who thinks he's lucky actual footage of a sting you won't
believe and a rat who gets caught in his own trap all this and more on america's dumbest
criminals [Music] welcome to america's dumbest criminals i'm daniel butler you know as well as i
do that crime of any sort is just plain stupid but some criminals stand out from
the crowd in the depth and profundity of their idiocy join us now in shaking the rotten fruit
from the tree of life as we open the files on america's dumbest criminals first up a man with soap in his ears
comes clean and junior takes a bubble bath initially we got a call a 9-1-1 call from a woman who had been out running
errands and so forth and came home and found that her front door had been locked from the inside so it was her
belief logically that someone was inside her home our officers responded and managed to
get through the back door at which time they found evidence to suggest that the back door had been forced open and upon
entering the house found several articles of value vcrs that kind of thing in the living room set up in such
a way that would suggest someone was preparing to take him out of the house in the course of the investigation we
found out that what had happened he had come in the first time and taken a pretty good cash of property from the
victim's home and then returned for more and for whatever reason was motivated to
take a bath a bubble bath and became so comfortable and tranquil that he fell asleep
sir sir wake up sir debbie time's over we'll take mr ducky with you if you got to transport a
prisoner from the fair oaks area to the downtown jail oftentimes their personal hygiene can be of a major concern
especially for two officers in a very close quarter patrol car [Music] abc quiz number 32
a house burglar in florida was captured when the homeowner found the burglar still in his home what was the burglar
doing was he a making one last trip inside b struggling with a large tv set or c playing video games
the correct answer is c yes he was about to make his high score in street fighting
now an honest but weird criminal confesses in admit it we had a disturbance call and i pulled
up to this i think of some kind of business or something and a guy comes don't play dumb with me let's just get
going okay yeah talk to me and uh he wasn't the one that they'd called about he had
gotten an argument with his girlfriend somewhere down the street and she had fled and called the police
i know it i did it and now it's time to go would you like to have the seat in the car
that that was just that's not really unusual just a little odd [Music] and now a story we call thinking and
driving this is what happens when dumb criminals think and drive six dumb criminals stole
a car sped away from the scene and into this house the suspect stumbled from the
car fell over the debris scattered around by the wreck and were apprehended by the police
the officers then showed this car to the dumb criminals as an example of how to correctly park in the garage ironically
this was the second time in four months that this house had been hit by a car one dumb criminal said in his defense
hey if you don't like my driving then stay off the lawn next darrell price tells the
semi-naked truth in debriefing back when i was in robbery robbery investigator we had a bank robbery at a
bank up off south boulevard when we arrived we got there we talking to the people and
then we got a call from the bowling alley about a tenth of a mile away or so that there was a strange person in the
bowling alley so i rode down to the bowling alley and in the laundry room of the bowling alley there was a guy
sitting there with nothing but a pair of briefs on some tennis shoes and he was just sweaty
what are you doing down here yeah i was out jogging and thought i'd come in here to
cool off stand up sir i didn't want to look at his briefs but he had a huge bulge
right in the front of his briefs sure put your arms inside [Music] what's that it's me
i'm a lucky guy huh so i walked up to him and kind of pulled it out and it was just stuffed with
money and all the bank robbery money so i mean i knew he was the bank robber and
you know eventually we got him downtown and he confessed to the bank robbery but
you know the only way we could get our money back was you know after we debriefed him basically
[Music] later on tonight's show see our first hidden cam dumb criminal recruitment
video [Music] next up a weisenheimer with no clue gets identified several times and so we meet
again kirk williams of the randall county sheriff's department in canyon texas tells of a man who walked in a
store one morning and paid for his purchases with the check the clerk took the required information
from the man's driver's license and put the check in the register an hour later the check casher was back
this time with a knife he made no attempt to alter his appearance and the clerk had no trouble remembering him the
clerk also had no problem remembering the robber's name and address since he had written them on the dumb criminals
check in the register excuse me man is yes it is this is the man that was in yes this
just in here about two hours ago waving a great big old knife i've never been in
this place in my life yes you were you're it wasn't two hours ago wait one minute just wait wait a minute
what in this shoe this is you get this clown out of here this is his chest this is the food
i hope you rot in jail just checking pretty down [Music] in louisiana it used to be against the
law to stand in a crowd and scream snake however it was also against the law to tie tiny vipers into nuts
next up perry knowles reports on a case called taxing driver well it just so happened i was working
narcotics back in the mid 70s and myself and a fellow officer were working partners we were looking for an
area up in a housing project to try to find someone to buy some dope for us out of there so we could get some search
warrants together well we contacted this one individual and back then the buy money you used to
buy drugs is what you had in your pocket there was no such thing as a fund for it
so we had about 15 16 between the two of us and this one individual said he could buy
out of a particular apartment so we give him the dollars and now be sure remember we don't front the money
so get the dope and come back and we're gonna watch you all away so don't give him the money till you get the drugs
okay that's cool and if you come back without the drugs you better come back for the money
it's no problem i mean man i'm with you i'm with you so he goes over spends a little time in the apartment and comes
back he says they want twenty dollars i said no and i'm going to give them 20 15
is our limit i said well better still let's just call it off because we don't have any more
money to invest in it i said let me have the fifteen dollars back he said well they're holding the fifty dollars
he didn't know what he uh i know what you said no i told you we don't front money
so i told him i said listen i'm gonna give you about an hour you better have our fifteen dollars back or we're gonna
put you in jail that's cool i'll talk to man one hour i'll talk to me and while we were busy
doing other things an armed robbery of an individual or cab driver goes out over the radio
so while we're up there in the area patrolling around trying to find a suspect for the robbery
dispatch advises us you have a party trying to contact you at another location just a couple of blocks away
so we immediately proceed over there and there's our informant dressed in the same clothes put out by the description
of the robbery he's sweating profusely he says i got your money you ain't going to put me in
jail now are you no no man i just uh i just want you we could have given you a right and the
same denomination of money that he gave us back to 15 that's all he took off the
cab driver what's up man yeah it's all here yeah it's all here that's exactly what he was handing us
back i think we're gonna have to take you downtown how are you thinking what you want me to do
he was charged with that robbery now we take you inside the courtroom for trial and error
from actual courtroom transcripts a bank teller gives a detailed description of a
getaway car she didn't see mrs gray you did not see the bank robber after he left the building is that right
no i didn't and you did not see whether he fled on foot or by automobile that's right
so how could you possibly have given an accurate description of the vehicle my client was driving
the thief took my car i guess i know what my own car looks like [Music] later a small-minded big-time dumb
criminal is just blowing smoke on america's dumbest criminals [Music] for as long as there have been laws
there have been criminals and for as long as there have been criminals there have been chowder heads simps and
goobers j.r johnson remembers the day he met a dumb criminal in of mice and men we went to serve a warrant on this man
and we went up and i went up and knocked on the door my partner was in the car and i went up and knocked on the door
and uh the man came to the door you missed a schumann yeah but you know i got a warrant for your rest you didn't
told him that we had a warrant he said i'm not going and i said no you're going and he said well it's gonna take more
than you and i said well wait a minute let me get my partner out here with me go get your damn pot i'll kick his butt
too yeah and so i went back to the car and i told my partner that i needed to come up
there and he was a he was a large man he was about 6'5 and 240 and he walked up and knocked on the door
and man opened the door you're going downtown and the man passed out it's your arrest you pick him up
[Music] now actual police footage you won't believe it's called we're gonna get you
we came up with this little sting operation we called wggy uh what we did was we wrote typed up
some letters uh claiming to be a sports cable company that was coming to the birmingham area here and that we was
having a party at the civic center and these few select people were given an invitation to come to this party
and wggy stands for we're going to get you so that was our acronym for wggy and we
like i said we typed this letter to all these people and we we instructed them to bring this letter with them and this
letter had a confirmation number on it well that was their actual warrant number and also in there
we stated about the trip to new orleans that we were giving away and that it was
being provided by we're going to take you away travel agency we were also giving away everybody who
came to this function was given two tickets to the alabama auburn game and then the president of our company he
and he signed a letter signed the letter j l bird if you say that real fast and what's up actually the jailbird
so we sent these letters out we we we got into the files of uh you know the old we had old ones we had new orange we
had a line out the door that went halfway around the block people waiting to get in
they're ready now here we go look at the camera all right so ggg wise got wggy has got me did they got you well
then we had a little tags with hello i'm so-and-so and we put hello i'm john doe
and my confirmation number is this and we stamped it on them all right y'all [Applause]
and he has a little podium he was standing in front of him saying well he's glad everybody's here uh before we
give away the trip to new orleans we got one more surprise to you and when he said that that was the cue for the swat
team guys to come in and they came in and we had them surrounded to avoid any any
unnecessary incidents we all we had a bunch of people with guns but only three of them were loaded
we ended up i think like say my captain said he was going to be happy with 50 arrests we ended up with about
anywhere 250 to 300 arrests wggy has me do they have you [Music] in new york it used to be against the
law to travel by tricycle unless you wear hells angels forming the dna golden helix
[Music] now some gangster wannabes get deflated in a self-inflicted drive-by in oklahoma a car load of gang members
out for trouble cruise the streets in search of their rivals suddenly they spotted their prey just as
the shooter raised the gun the car hit a pothole the ride bounced the gun fired and the
front tire blew they found the stranded gang members fighting amongst themselves over the
flat tire [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] next up brad burris recalls the man who
redefined dumb and getting burned what was supposed to happen was him and his landlord he lived in a little
shotgun house a little wooden frame house and uh what was supposed to happen she
she was throwing him out she was evicting him and what he was wanting to do he went and got him a ten thousand
dollar renters insurance policy he uh was going to tell all his neighbors that he's going out of town
for a couple of days and the house is going to burn down he's going to come back collect his insurance and
be done with it well what happened was uh he's over here and i'm on this corner over here trying to serve a
warrant his house he parks his car on the street walks across the lot with a two five gallon cans of gasoline
and in the back window it's up above his head luckily for him it was above his head so he pours the gas in there and uh
i don't know if you know about gas frames when they sit there for a while they spread out
well he was going to just throw the match up there it's going to catch on fire real easy and he's going to walk
back to his car and leave well it blew the back of the house off i'm sitting over there at the front
porch and i hear this boom i look over and the house is just totally involved in flames i got an
explosion of 2213 grantland avenue and so he's got everybody's attention now i'm gonna need a fire truck and i'm
gonna need an ambulance i get over there and uh i'm talking to him and he smells
like a pine tree he's just real strong pine odor short guy a big guy i think i was terrorists
we uh that we learned harris hatch and uh and uh i looked in his car and there's a can of pine air freshener
sitting there so the longer i talk to him the more the pine tree smell wears off and the gas smell starts coming out
it's right here everything i've got in that cabinet's gone i'm just glad i've got inside
you'll have to excuse me uh sir we're not through yet uh sir on the way to the jail he asked
me because uh do you think my insurance is still gonna cover my house [Music] in california it used to be against the
law to leave a boat on a flooded street hey hey no parking there no parking keep
moving come on come on and with that we come to the end of another show our continued thanks to
police officers across the nation for their stories i'm daniel butler saying don't be dumb don't break the law
[Music] [Music] hmm [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

In this episode of "America's Dumbest Criminals," we'll witness a dumb criminal who thinks he's lucky, actual footage of a sting you won't believe and a rat who gets caught in his own trap.

Crime is no laughing matter, except when the criminals are bumbling fools. Hosted by Debbie Alan and Daniel Butler, this show looks at lawbreakers through a humorous lens.

Brief Summary

This episode highlights bizarre criminal antics and a massive police sting operation leading to hundreds of arrests.

Key points

America's Dumbest Criminals. A showcase of the most ridiculous criminal acts caught on camera.
Bubble Bath Bandit. A burglar takes a bubble bath and falls asleep, leading to his capture.
The Check Cashing Robbery. A robber returns to the scene of the crime without changing his appearance.
WGGY Sting Operation. Police set up a fake event to catch criminals with outstanding warrants.
Burning Down the House. A man tries to commit insurance fraud by burning his house down but fails spectacularly.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Crime of any sort is just plain stupid.

Introduction to the show by Daniel Butler.

1:03WatchDec 2, 2021

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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